For many young or small companies, managing processes and meeting goals is pretty straightforward. They have a team of three or four people committed to the mission. They’ve defined roles and responsibilities. There are few barriers to communication. Then they start to grow. Now they’re a team of 15 or 20, and they’re not sure why exactly, but things aren’t going so well. That’s where an organizational assessment can help.
Read MoreIn 2005, I was working as a consultant, doing some due diligence on software for a startup. The company, founded by two patent attorneys, was attempting to create an online marketplace for swapping books, music, movies, and video games—back when those were all physical objects that needed to be physically traded. The founders had patented their ideas and written hundreds of pages of specs. They’d already hired, fired, and had sued one software development firm. When the second firm they’d hired went past budget on a fixed price contract before completing the software, the founders reached out to me.
Read MoreConflict is inevitable. Everyone is different—different backgrounds, different scripts, different personalities, and different goals. Difference creates conflict. If we’ve learned anything from the last few months of civil unrest, it’s that embracing differences in our lives and in our organizations is critical. Workplace conflict will happen. By treating it as an opportunity for growth, we’ll help ourselves, our organizations, and our employees.
Read MoreIf it were up to me, everyone in a leadership position, or starting or building a business, would have a coach — not because I want to (or could) coach them all, but because leaders who have coaches are better leaders. At the same time, I recognize that every business leader is balancing dozens of competing priorities, now more than ever. Is it time for you to hire a leadership coach? A better question might be Are you fine staying right where you are?
Read MoreCompany culture isn’t just a buzzword for ping pong tables and nap pods at the office. Your company culture is derived from your values and how you implement them, impacting everything from employee retention to innovation.
Read MoreOver a family dinner recently, my brother-in-law explained that my mother-in-law’s car has some high-tech alerts on it. I asked my mother-in-law if it had a collision avoidance system, and she responded, “All I know is that if I hear three beeps I need to stop so I don’t bang up the car.”
What if we had a similar alert system for leaders of businesses – when something goes wrong, you hear three beeps and you know you need to stop so you don’t damage your business?
Read MoreBeing a leader means always having your fingers on the pulse of your business. It means juggling responsibilities, putting out fires, and claiming responsibility. You are responsible for the vision, agenda, and strategy of your entire team. While sitting in the driver's seat can be exhilarating, it can also be exhausting and lonely. But what if it doesn’t have to be? Learn some of the basic pillars of leadership: strategic planning, building a healthy you and a healthy team, and getting outside-in perspectives.
Read More“Sometimes I’m trying to finish the project you gave me earlier in the week, and I’m nearly done. But you tell me to drop it, that it’s not as important as some new thing you want the team to start on. I like your ideas – and you have a lot of them – but I wish you would let us finish what we start before you tell us to do the new thing. It gets kind of frustrating because I feel like you don’t appreciate that we’re trying to do the things you want, but it’s always changing.” Have you been there before with a team like this? No matter what you might put in your strategic business plan, you will not succeed unless people can learn to work together effectively.
Read More2018 brought Trajectify’s inaugural live business growth conference which brought together dozens of leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals. We held Trajectify Live on September 13, 2018 at the Science History Institute in Old City, Philadelphia, featuring four Trajectify coaches plus a line-up of guest speakers and presenters while filled the day with insights, lessons and experiences
If you missed the opportunity to join us in September, we’ve got you covered. Here are videos we took of ten presentations from the conference. If you’re interested to attend the next Trajectify Live, please sign up here to be notified about the next Trajectify Live.
Read MoreThis time of the year, I find myself in a lot of intense conversations with founders and leaders about their plans for the coming year. I am always disappointed to discover that many do not have a plan. They often have next year's goals and financial forecasts, usually required if they have a Board of Directors, but they don’t know the details of how those goals will be met. It’s all good and well to declare what you are going to do, but how much thought have you given to how you’re going to get it done?
Read MoreSean Darras, a Trajectify client and CEO of LUXTECH, a young, innovative LED lighting company in Old City, sat down for an interview with Mike Krupit during Trajectify Live. Sean founded the company in 2012 and over the last 6 years he has filled the company with people who care about the good of the company, the environment, and each person the products touch. The company has had impressive growth, and each quarter brings a new series of challenges for the team to learn from and conquer. In the Trajectify Live interview, Sean and Mike walked through some of the lessons learned in each phase.
Read MoreGrowing a multi-million dollar company rarely comes easy. The path to success is certainly different for each hungry entrepreneur. Lisa Robinson was one of the keynote speakers with a heart-warming story that opened our eyes to a new perspectives. Her story to success was unconventional. She didn’t start out as the leader that we see today taking over the stage or the owner that the U.S. SBA recently named Eastern Pennsylvania District Minority-Owned Small Business of the Year.
Read MoreMost of us take care of things that are important to us on a regular basis – maintaining our car, going to the dentist for a checkup, and updating software on our computer. But do we take a step back and invest the energy to look at our business model to see if everything is working the way we’d like it to? When you take time to review your business model, you may be surprised by the value you discover by making some tweaks – or perhaps even reinventing what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
Read MoreAs a leader or entrepreneur, you get to create vision, set goals, and define success. As a business coach, I’d be negligent if I didn’t say that money (revenues & profits) is important. A business needs to be able to sustain itself (and its principals, team, investors, etc.). To make money, we need people. To attract and keep people, we need team and well-defined values. There is a direct relationship between money, people, values, culture, and organization. Who you hire and how you lead and build team is critical to the long term success of anything you may undertake where organization is necessary.
Read MoreI was at a crossroads. Trajectify had grown to keeping me busy nearly full-time. I was organizing the Philly New Technology Meetup (PNTM). And I had my tech startup, IntroNet. For Trajectify, I was working with private clients, small groups, and doing a lot of speaking and business development. For PNTM, we were growing without bounds (nearly 3,000 members in less than two years), gaining sponsors, doingbigger events. merged with Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic. As for IntroNet, things got very exciting as we saw a pivot from our introductions systems to doing something bigger and bolder with groups sharing their collective connections, expertise and information. I raised $1M for IntroNet.
Read MoreStartups and Small Businesses sometimes find themselves at the edge of a chasm. With success in developing and growing their business, a stage is reached where they find that the "next step" is a big one! Trajectify partners with the entrepreneur to build momentum and trajectory to be able to cross the chasm.
We offer private and group (Mastermind) coaching and hold frequent events and seminars.
Trajectify is founded my Mike Krupit, veteran of eight startups. Mike has helped dozens of companies grow and mentored and advised hundreds more.
Ask a room of leaders why they set goals and most will say accountability. That answer creates the problem. Goals exist for alignment. The company needs to reach a number, so this group does this, that group does that, and together the math works. Everyone is pointed in the same direction. Focus comes second. A good goal tells you what to say no to.
The instinct to build a team that moved in the same direction, at the same pace, with the same set of perspectives is limiting. Consistency is created at the expense of range. The goal isn't alignment of strengths. It's coverage. The most dangerous teams I've seen weren't the ones with conflict. hey were the ones with none. Where every conversation ends in agreement. Where nothing gets surfaced. Where the people who see things differently may have learned to stop saying so.
The same restlessness that makes it hard to stay on plan is what made them start the company in the first place. The wandering mind, the refusal to be satisfied with what already exists, the ability to see something before it exists: that's not a disorder. That's the source.
If you're building a company, knowing your role isn't optional. The visionary needs someone who will build what they see without getting in the way of the seeing. The integrator needs someone who will point at the moon and mean it and keep pointing at the same moon long enough for the bridge to get built. The mistake I see most often: trying to be both or hiring someone who mirrors you when you need someone who complements you.
The fear of success doesn't usually announce itself as fear. It sounds like planning. It sounds like due diligence. It sounds like being responsible.
What it actually is: A limiting belief. It’s spending today's energy on problems you'll only face if you win
Right people, right seats doesn't mean everyone eventually moves into a leadership role. It means finding the seat where each person does their best work and building a structure that makes those seats worth staying in. Create a path for people who want to grow as individual contributors. Create a separate path for people who want to lead. Reward both. Respect both. Pay both.
Don't prevent scraped knees; prevent bus crashes. A scraped knee hurts. You might carry the scar for years. That's the point. The pain is proportional to the lesson. A bus crash can lead to catastrophic loss. The project. The company. The relationship. Something that can't be recovered. The leader's job isn't to eliminate mistakes. It's to know the difference between those two things.
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Sometimes exploration is worth it. Sometimes you just spent a week of the team’s attention answering a question the founder could have tested in an afternoon. That is the part I think leaders underestimate. Ideas do not only cost money. They cost time, focus, and brainpower long before anyone approves a budget. The question I’d want answered is: how much of the organization does this idea deserve yet?